Iron Man Thor – FCBD Comic – A Commentary/ Review

This book was a perfect example of why I recently dropped Iron Man and why Marvel’s writing in general and Fraction in particular irk me to no end.

In one part of the book Tony refers to the fact that he is broke. This is in keeping with the current continuity of Iron Man. Then a few pages later we find he owns a space station that I guess is the size of a football stadium at least. Comic book logic is always a crap shoot, but the internal logic of the book has to make sense. On page one saying the sky is blue and then to just change it to green makes no sense. Some sort of one liner to explain this away would be nice. This is a common failing with Fraction and I notice it with Bendis and Millar a lot of times. The attitude seems to be that this is comic books and it doesn’t have to always make sense. I get that comic books are suppose to at times be fun and the adventures and battles will be outlandish, but the internal logic still needs to be there for me. I know fans that don’t care and just brush my complaints off as nitpicking, but for me it is a “dumbing down” of comics or disrespecting the audience. Once these things are allowed you can never try and figure out what is going to happen next because even internal logic is out the window. The same thing happens with characterization, Tony Start becomes gay next issue and it is treated like he was always gay and the womanizing was a cover. No sense is followed by some writers and characterization is mercurial at best.

This issue is rife with other things such as the cavalier fact that human lives were being lost left and right. The book starts with a tidal wave of immense proportions and Thor can’t stop it. The loss of lives must have been in the thousands, but it was a page panel of awe inspiring disaster. When Thor mentions it to Iron Man he smiles about what he may have created and that it was stolen. Where is the heroic effort to stop the tidal wave and save lives?

Finally at the end of the story rich corporate fat cats are the evil guys on the moon who have caused these disasters. Everyone on the moon is put into Tony’s space station and set adrift in an orbit between Earth and Mars. Everyone! Thor and Tony are fine with it and maybe they will get back to them someday. I guess they are judge, jury, prison keeper and now the final arbiter of right and wrong. Isn’t this what we just got away from with the new “heroic age”? Come on Batman drops off the bad guys at Gotham Central and Spider-Man ties up the criminals for the police, but Tony and Thor, hey you reap what you sow and we decided anyone even just working for these people are guilty.

Yeah, yeah, it is just a one shot story and doesn’t need to make sense is what some people are saying. Other will argue that I’m over analyzing it, it is just a comic book. I grew up with people deriding comics and what I thought was a great entertainment form and as the writer has gotten better I can point to what I read with pride. This type of writing is why people who have an IQ that don’t normally read a comic, will read this and think we are retards or intellectually stuck at 12 years old. If comics are to be a viable source of entertainment and something you want your kids to read than we have to demand better. I have read a ton of single issue stories far superior to this. It is lazy and sloppy story telling. While most fans may just think it was a cool action picture and a neat team-up, I disagree. Heck you might as well read the silver age stuff that was targeted for eight year olds.

I thought comics were getting better, but not here, not here.